Breakers Vs Crocs Vector Arena

3rd time these 2 teams have met this season with NZ narrowly winning at home in game 1 due to some Vukona/Jackson brilliance and then rolled over Townsville in Townsville again behind the skill of Jackson in game 2 last week. The Breakers are unbeaten since Perth pulled their pants down and smacked their bums in round 1 while the Crocs are 0-8 and desperate to get a W.They match up well everywhere except inside the paint with Pledger and Hudson getting limited resistance from Allen and Hinder.

Yeah, I think I've said it before, but the win when (if?) it comes could come against anybody. They have lost close games to great teams and been blown out by scrubs.

They make it so hard to win because they don't really have any cerebral guys on the team. Last year you at least had Gill and Schenscher who played with their heads and were always looking to make the right play for the right situation depending on the clock and scoreline. eg. Slow it down? Speed it up? Go yourself? Get that guy involved? Take a charge? Get in that guy's head?

Everyone on this team doesn't really think about stuff like that. It's a really low IQ basketball team. One or two thinking-man's decisions in key moments of each of their losses and they could really be sitting at 0.500 or close to it. But you can't really teach smarts.

Gary Ervin - a "takeover" player, not really a thinker.

Peter Crawford - a "takeover" player, not really a thinker. Berates his teammates for failing without teaching them the right way to do something. Not a leader.

Todd Blanchfield - not a thinker, but efficient as hell

Jacob Holmes - one of the dumbest offensive basketball players I have ever seen, but a phenomenal rebounder.

Ben Allen - one of the dumbest basketball players I have ever seen.

Russell Hinder - does lots of dumb stuff for a captain. Not a good leader despite his passion.

Michael Cedar - horribly inefficient scorer. Never knows what play to make.

That's harsh on Holmes. He's a smart player, I think he just likes to back his own shot too often when it's not there. Maybe more ego and instinct than "dumb".

If you get a chance sometime, watch him at ABL level where he is off the leash and allowed to put up 20+ shots. Might not always score at a good clip, but he amasses stats and does it fairly tirelessly.

(Apparently, despite not looking like the type and being a slow starter, he's the one that wins running drills by outlasting others.)

Don't get me wrong, his nose for the ball is rivalled only in this league by maybe Mika Vukona, but he just shoots some terrible shots, completely at odds with the flow of the offense. I absolutely love what he brings the team off the ball, and he carried us last season for long stretches. It's just when everything is going wrong, and everyone is taking bad shots, he seems to be taking the most...

He could still get the same amount of points per game if he just reigned it in a bit, shot a couple of times less each night and focused on getting quality looks, especially more at the rim.

If Holmes jumpshot looked like Vukona's he prob wouldn't cop nearly as much shit. Vukona is far more aggressive though, doesn't settle for a jumpshot unless it is wide open. Mika will try take it all the way for a layup, Holmes will chuck something up quickly not matter how early it is in the offense. I agree with Isaac on the ego/instinct call, he takes a lot on his shoulders and plays hard and wants to win. Sometimes he probably tries to do do much and rates his own shot higher than his shooting percentage suggests lol. At least he doesn't lay down.

Breakers for the three peat?We're now on a 7 game winning streak and have moved on from out very poor start to the season that only included 1 loss.

Will be interesting to see how we perform next week against arch rivals Perth, not that either team needs any motivation to perform against each other, but both will have plenty with our boys wanting to avenge the round 1 loss and perth wanting to snap their losing streak. Can't wait.

everyone writes them off every off season, "oh they lost Penney, they're stuffed", "without Wilkinson they don't have the firepower" lmao.Then we get our pants pulled down by Perth which happens at least once a season anyway and the cries get louder.

Hard to rank teams as "worst ever" when the nature of the competition changes so frequently. Bad though this Crocs team may be, it certainly doesn't rank with some of the stinker '90's teams that were around when the talent pool was stretched far more than it is currently.